Imatges de pàgina
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They might lament-for I am one Whom men love not,—and yet regret, Unlike this day, which, when the sun

Shall on its stainless glory set,

Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.

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WILT thou forget the happy hours
Which we buried in Love's sweet bowers,

Heaping over their corpses cold

Blossoms and leaves, instead of mould?

Blossoms which were the joys that fell,

And leaves, the hopes that yet remain.

II.

Forget the dead, the past? O yet

There are ghosts that may take revenge for it,
Memories that make the heart a tomb,

Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom,

And with ghastly whispers tell

That joy, once lost, is pain.

PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES.

LISTEN, listen, Mary mine,

To the whisper of the Apennine,

It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar,
Or like the sea on a northern shore,
Heard in its raging ebb and flow

By the captives pent in the cave below.
The Apennine in the light of day

Is a mighty mountain dim and grey,
Which between the earth and sky doth lay;
But when night comes, a chaos dread
On the dim starlight then is spread,

And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm.

INVOCATION TO MISERY.

I.

COME, be happy!— sit by me,
Shadow-vested Misery :

Coy, unwilling, silent bride,

Mourning in thy robe of pride,

Desolation - deified!

II.

Come, be happy!— sit near me :
Sad as I may seem to thee,
I am happier far than thou,
Lady, whose imperial brow

Is endiademed with woe.

ΠΙ.

Misery! we have known each other, Like a sister and a brother

Living in the same lone home,

Many years—we must live some

Hours or ages yet to come.

IV.

'Tis an evil lot, and yet
Let us make the best of it;
If love lives when pleasure dies,
We will love, till in our eyes

This heart's Hell seem Paradise.

V.

Come, be happy !· lie thee down On the fresh grass newly mown, Where the Grasshopper doth sing Merrily one joyous thing

In a world of sorrowing!

VI.

There our tent shall be the willow,
And thine arm shall be my pillow;

Sounds and odours sorrowful

Because they once were sweet, shall lull

Us to slumber, deep and dull.

VII.

Ha! thy frozen pulses flutter

With a love thou darest not utter.

Thou art murmuring-thou art weeping

Is thine icy bosom leaping

While my burning heart lies sleeping?

VIII.

Kiss me; -oh! thy lips are cold:
Round my neck thine arms enfold
They are soft, but chill and dead;
And thy tears upon my head
Burn like points of frozen lead.

IX.

Hasten to the bridal bed-
Underneath the grave 'tis spread:

In darkness may our love be hid.
Oblivion be our coverlid

We may rest, and none forbid.

X.

Clasp me till our hearts be grown
Like two shadows into one;
Till this dreadful transport may
Like a vapour fade away,

In the sleep that lasts alway.

XI.

We may dream, in that long sleep,
That we are not those who weep;
E'en as Pleasure dreams of thee,
Life-deserting Misery,

Thou mayst dream of her with me.

XII.

Let us laugh, and make our mirth,
At the shadows of the earth,
As dogs bay the moonlight clouds,
Which, like spectres wrapt in shrouds,
Pass o'er night in multitudes.

XIII.

All the wide world, beside us

Show like multitudinous

Puppets passing from a scene;

What but mockery can they mean,

Where I am - where thou hast been?

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